Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1887-01-27
SNj NFLINTS.
Cath Gives some spc eimens.

| GUS OF. Ills man dluc dp pcdiS W U.s.
long to an old family. and I judge from
some fam ly names. which creep into
I the local items, that he was of the family
of Robert Treat Paine, who was sgner
of theDeclaration of independence. This
Robert Treat Paine the first was Bos~
ton chap who graduated at Harvard Col
lege at the brink of the French wars,
and. becoming clergyman, went as
a chaplain with the American troops to
Canada. He then dr,fted to Europe as
mercantile clerk, and studied law
while there and on his return. mean
time teaching school. He settled at
Taunton, Mass, and was assistant pros
ecuting attorney against the British
troops in the Boston massacre.
He was in congress during much of
the Revolution; was attorney general of
Massachusetts, anil went on the su-
preme bench there, where he sat until
he became deaf and could hardly hold
up his head. Throughout life he bore
the reputation of unnecessary strict
HCSS SuutSS. anu ilC 10, bhOlO-
fore, one of those New Englanders
about whom little is known in the rest
of the country. because he had no sem
timent nor breadth.
/ The curious nature of this family is
further testified by the career of Robert
Treat Pa mes son. who bore the same
name and who died three years before
his father at the age of only thirty
eight. This eccentric young man had
his name changed by the legislature be-
cause he had been called Thomas Paine
originally. He sad he wanted to have
Christian name.
| At college he was poet, precursor
of Longfellow and Brtant, and coming
out OF school he went into a counting
house, but there he used to write poetry
in his day-book and go out at night and
write theatrical or t cisms. which nearly
broke the heart of all the Paines in
Massachusetts. Then he married Miss
Baker, an actress, when his old father
sat down on him, and he was compell-
Cu W lCSVlI W poCtlN hot ~ iiNSliiioou,
which had always been bud enough.
His poems. however. made aim little
money, and he sold newspaper he had
started, which bore the curious name
Of the Federal Orary, and was published
twice week, an agreeable compromise
in issuing He took enough time to
write up the paper to have it appear
twice and no more.
Much of the time. while his father
was sitting on the bench, the young lad
was master Of ceremonies at the thea
ter. the people having created that of
flee in order to still further Dewlder
and exasperate the responsibility of
Massachusetts. The younger Paine
finally sat down to work in earnest, and
studied law with Judge Parsons, and
delivered the eulogy of Washington
when he died. The Boston people OF
the worldly sort swarmed around h m
and he babe ia r to become II notable
advocate; but suddenly he concluded
that money was not worth working for
if il involved SO much mean company as
thai of Judges. divineS and social prigS.
So he turned about, picked up the play
actors aga n, let time take care of its If,
and lied i'll actual ~ serY. OF this fam
lily has come the curious Mr. Pane. 1t
appears, who, concluding that there
was only one thing this world respected,
and that was money. went about gett ng
it, and then forgetting what he had
done with It. 1t does indeed seem sin
gular that he could have put together
as much money as he Il and left 1t any
where it would have turned up.
He had friend n the piano business
named Chickering, to whom he took
somewhere about $500 900 in an old
bandana handkerchief and asked him
to put it in his safe. The money was
found in all sorts of currency, from
postage notes up to one-thousand-dol.
lar notes. One of the banks also re.
ported in time deposit of $40, 00C
probably was a disposition to be a
spendthrift, and who went ava by COM
batting his natural tastes, would live on
what would satisfy cat, and wander
around amid prominent and proud con,
nectons, hardly decently clad. In
Chicago and other towns, where he
bought real estate, he would make his
investments and not go near them. One
of his kin remarked in a letter which
has come out in Court that
He is SO miserably spirited that hi
has become thoroughly devoted to {
life of abstinence and penury, so long
as his own money must be used tc
feed and clothe him. He is not admit,
ted into society at ali, and wanders
! about from place to place where he can
get crumb or crust, and such a state
of mind grows upon him yearly"
The money-makers OF this country in
early times were more like this Mr.
Paine than Ike the rich men of the
present day, whom we often accuse OF
overreaching but who almost inyaria
bly, keep up the Accomplishments of so
ciety and will DIN in contributions ever
against their will for public necessities.
Stephen Girard, it is related, would
go out to his farm-gate while he was q
banker and sell apples to persons pass
ing by on Sundays. Yet, with all hi
greed for money and carelessness o
dress. he had phi lanthropic DISPOSE
ton, and curiously enough he did moi
draw it from the doctrines of Christ
but from the French philosophers of the
eighteenth century, of whom he was 1
pupil.
, The same old man who named hi
ships the Rousseau, the Voltaire and
the Helvetius sustains upon his bequet'
at this moment some two hundred
orphans. and their college has an in
come of $50 900 year.